


In the Darkness

by AVirtoMusae



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Death, Depression, I'm not kidding, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4314885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVirtoMusae/pseuds/AVirtoMusae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renly now is held in a prison below Dragonstone. Loras does not want to live without Renly. Both are hanging on only by threads and fate alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write angst in order to write more fluff for MtF verse. I hope to have he next work in that up soon. Thanks!

  


_Here I wait_  
In this prison cell.  
But in my heart,  
I know this to be hell.  
Yet here I wait,  
Waiting for you to rescue me.  
All I want is to die,  
To die and meet you again.  
I will stay in this prison hell  
Until I meet you again. 

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

_Sometimes, it hurts to breath, to think, anything. But then, it's all just a dream anyway. He can see himself, sitting there, next to Renly sometimes. It hurts too much then. He misses Renly so much that it is more than just a feeling. Sometimes, he cries out, sobbing into dream-Renly's shirt._

 _He sucks in a breath. It hurts. It throbs. His chest, his heart, feels constricted, like it's burning._ Air. Where is air? Where is life? __

_And then the dream changes. Then, he watches Renly. Renly, who looks so pale, so thin that it hurts. Gods, what he would do if he could only help this Renly. This Renly whimpers, barely looking up, but he smiles almost as if he can feel Loras there._

_Still, in this dream, Loras is powerless to help, just like he was the night Renly died. He cries again, though he does not know he's crying He's dying inside, unable to help. He wants to lash out against anything, everything. There is nothing for him to lash out against, no Rainbow Guards, only himself._

_And he can't even do that. He can't punish himself for what he sees though Seven Hells how he wants to._

_He can do nothing as a red blur comes. Renly whimpers, and Loras wants to pull him into a kiss, to comfort him, to protect him. But still, he's stuck, frozen and forced to watch._

_Blood flows from Renly's veins, and Loras thinks that maybe this Renly will die, and Loras can't breath. Amidst everything else, Loras broods on all the things he could have, should have done, to save his love. But Renly is dead, and so is Loras's heart, and this is what remains._

He remembers very little when he wakes, and Gods, he knows he wishes that he could enter that cold sleep of death just to see Renly again.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Renly sits in his prison cell. _Is it ever over?_ he wonders silently to himself. It's a foolish thought. It's never over. This torment never is. He doesn't let the sobs escape him, not anymore. He wants them to, but that would be letting Melisandre win. He can't let that happen. He'd rather die than let that happen.

But then, if he dies, he will live again.

If he cries, he will die again.

Feeling is pain, and Gods, there is so much pain.

Melisandre comes into the cell, once again without his brother. What is a brother anyway? But he knows the answer to that already: brother is a meaningless word, just like hope, and life, and death.

He wonders idly why Loras doesn't save him, but he knows it's because Loras can't. Sometimes Renly wonders why he doesn't just save himself, but again, it's because he himself can't. And then he tries to forget about how hope does not exist, how that warm, slippery, fickle substance slithered from him so long ago.

He pushes away from Melisandre, but that small resistance is so utterly useless that Renly wonders why he even tries. The leeches bit his blood, and he knows that there will be bucket of it. Maybe Melisandre will kill him again just to bring him back, emptier than before.

Melisandre smiles at him, and tells him that it is king's blood and how proud he should be that he is helping out the rightful king.

King . . . Renly was king once. How foolish a thought tht had been. He wishes that he never had tried, because then maybe he would never have been brought into this hell.

For now, he will sleep, his slumber filled with dreams of a half-ded Loras, who only wants to save him. It's the only happiness he thinks he'll ever find.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Margaery looks at him with concern. Loras only wants her to stop, only wants everything to stop. She's looking at his wrists, at the thin scars that have wormed their ways into his flesh. They should have been the gates from this world, yet here he is.

She reminds him to eat, to drink, to live. She tells him that he's killing himself. He already knows, but then, he's already dead inside. He's just waiting for his body to catch up with him.

Why is he still even here?

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Renly thinks he should be relieved when Melisandre leaves, but somehow he isn't. He knows that should he die, they will bring him back. He doesn't know who they are. He wants to kill himself, but it's a futile hope at best.

He holds in his sobs, hold in the little bits of who he once was. He doesn't really care, but it's a small comfort, and Gods how he needs more of those.

When will he finally be able to leave?

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Cersei is urging him to attack Dragonstone early, to lead the vanguard himself and to end it as quickly as possible. Loras knows that it's because she wants him to die in the siege.

Loras just nods along. It will be worth the chance. Cersei thinks he will die in the siege. Maybe he will, and he could kiss Cersei for the opportunity she is giving him.

He doesn't kiss her, and he leads the siege. He will betray Renly by neither word nor deed, he tells himself. But it will not matter until he dies and sees Renly again.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Melisandre visits him in his dreams. He wonders if he will ever be set free. Melisandre tells him that his blood has been worthless, that he was no king. One night she hints that maybe it should have been him.

Once he would have thanked her with a grin. Now he just whimpers and shakes his head. Being king had only ever been just a foolish thought made truth. 

He asks he for his death. Melisandre shakes her head, and Renly could kill her for denying him this opportunity.

He doesn't, though, and he wakes up in his cell, alone. He tries not to cry. He will be strong, he tells himself. He will be strong because it is what Loras would have done.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Loras can scarcely think through the pain. The oil burned his skin and his face is stuck to the inside of his helm. He has been struck by so many weapons, yet still he stands. He doesn't know why he does. What he wants is death, and yet here he defies it.

He pushes forwards. He doesn't truly know when he makes it into Dragonstone. He doesn't care. Like in his dreams, he makes his way to the prison section and finds Renly there, hiding in the corner as if shadows will save him.

He goes inside and sits next to Renly. This is all he ever wanted, to see his love again. All he feels is his heart breaking all over again. Loras is sure that Renly is dying, and once over, he is powerless to save him. Loras forgets that he himself is dying and collapses next to Renly.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

Renly does not know if he feels joy at seeing Loras here, for Loras is surely dying. He heard fighting outside, yet he was sure that amidst the blood, he would be captive forever.

Yet here is Loras, dying, in his cell. Renly isn't sure if he can even bring himself to hope. He thinks he may be mad. He thinks he ought to be. He thinks his heart is broken. So often Renly had dreamt of Loras saving him. 

But here they lay, just two broken things, hopeless and afraid of the death they'd always longed for. Renly doesn't fully understand that he, too, is dying.

He lays his hand on Loras, oblivious to how his lover cries out. Pain is a dream, a fleeting lie of reality, he knows.

"Loras," he whispers into the darkness.

"Ren," comes the strained reply. "Are you real?"

Renly lies down next to Loras, holding him in the dark. "Yes."

Loras makes a pained sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob. "So am I." He pauses, and Renly would think him dead except for the fact he breathes still. Then be whispers, "Stay with me?"

"Always."

And then they talk no more.

✴ ❇ ✴ ❇ ✴

They die that night, holding each other in their arms, yet falling into a death together is the happiest either has been since that fateful night so long ago.

Loras’s men find them. Injured, they call him. Their victory was won at the price of blood and gore and death. To announce Loras as dead somehow seems strange. Few people recognize the man Loras is curled around, and those that do can scarce believe it.

Their bodies are given to Mace Tyrell, and he buries Loras in the family crypt. He buries Renly there too when Margaery tells him that they both would have wanted it. And so, two dead men together are buried, and perhaps, they are together still in death where they were separated by life.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback is appreciated! Thank you for reading!
>
>> A Virto Musae  
> By the Virtue of the Muse


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